Name Clare Gerada | ||
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Education University College London | ||
Clare Gerada, Lady Wessely (born 1959) is a London-based general practitioner who was Chair of the Council of the Royal College of General Practitioners 2010–2013. She has professional interests in mental health and substance misuse.
Contents
- Dr clare gerada itv daybreak 07 feb 2014 nhs england central patient database
- Early life
- Medical career
- Awards and honours
- Personal life
- References
She is a Covenor of the cross-party political movement, More United.
Dr clare gerada itv daybreak 07 feb 2014 nhs england central patient database
Early life
Gerada was born in Nigeria although her father came from Malta, and the family moved to the United Kingdom in 1963. Her father opened a singlehanded GP practice in Peterborough.
Medical career
She qualified in medicine at UCL Medical School in 1982. She then trained in psychiatry and worked at the Maudsley Hospital in south London.
She qualified as a GP in 1992. She started work in general practice in Lambeth, London, in 1992.
Gerada cites her main interests of work as being around mental health and substance misuse and has spent over her professional career leading the development of primary care substance (alcohol, drugs) services in England.
She has also been Director of Primary Care for the National Clinical Governance Team and Senior Medical Advisor to the Department of Health, and is Medical Director of the NHS Practitioner Health Programme, which provides confidential medical advice for doctors and dentists.
In 2000, she established the Substance Misuse Unit at the RCGP.
She is one of the partners in the Hurley Group which runs a number of GP practices and walk-in centres across London.
In November 2010 she became Chair of the Council of the Royal College of General Practitioners for a three years term of office. She was the college's first female Chair for 50 years, the previous female Chair having been Dr Annis Gillie.
In September 2013 she was appointed as the Chair of Clinical Board, Primary Care Transformation, NHS England (London Region), to take up the position the following month. She resigned from this position in April 2015 so she could speak out against what she calls the Conservatives' "desperate quest for privatisation".
In April 2016, she was elected to the council of the Council of the British Medical Association (BMA).
In September 2016 she was named as one of the Liberal Democrats' "new Beveridge group" of advisers. She had been a lifelong supporter of the Labour Party until the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016.
Awards and honours
Gerada is a Fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners, a Member and Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.
She was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2000 Birthday Honours "for service to medicine and to drug misusers".
In 2012 she was made a honorary member of Malta's National Order of Merit.
In February 2012 she appeared in the BBC Radio 4 series Great Lives, nominating Vera Brittain.
In February 2013 she was assessed as one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom by Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4.
On 29 March 2013, she appeared on BBC Radio 4s 'Any Questions?' which was broadcast from St. George's Chapel, Chatham. It was presented by Ritula Shah and the others guests were; Tom Newton Dunn, the political editor of The Sun newspaper, Lord Trimble (Irish Politician) and Angela Eagle (Labour Party MP). On 13 May 2013 she debated the NHS with Chris Skidmore MP on BBC's The Politics Show.
In 2013, 2014 and 2015 she appeared in the London Evening Standard's "top 1000 influential Londoners" feature, voted for by members of the public.
She was named as one of the "top 500 Influential Britons" by The Sunday Times and Debrett's in January 2014, and number 4 in Health.
Personal life
She married Simon Wessely, who became a professor of psychiatry and was knighted in 2013.